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MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



HON. J. WM. STOKES, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 



UPON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 



HON. JOSEPH H. EARLE 

(Late a Senator from the State of South Carolina), 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



APRIL 23, 1S9S. 



WASHIiS:GXOX. 

I 898. 









4- 






iSSaSS 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS UPON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
OF HON. JOSEPH H. EARLE. 



-J 



The SPEAKER. The resolutions submitted by the gentleman 
from South Carolina will be read. 
The resolutions were read, as follows: 

Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspended that opportu- 
nity may be given for tribute to the memory of Joseph H. Earle, lato a 
Senator from the State of South Carolina. 

Resolved, That as a particular mark of respect to the memory of the de- 
ceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a public servant, the 
House of Representatives, at the conclusion of these memorial services, ad- 
journ. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 

Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to send a copy of these z'esoUitiona 
to the family of the deceased. 

^ The resolutions were adopted. 



Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, we do most honor ourselves when 
we bestow upon the honored dead the just meed of praise. For 
the purposes of earthly existence that praise, however high and 
however worthily bestowed, is powerless to benefit the departed 
spirit. The word of praise and appreciation sparingly uttered or 
wholly withheld when it would have been priceless for inspiration 
to noble achievement falls now upon deaf ears. The pulses that 
might have thereby been thrilled with nobler aspiration are now 
dull and unresponsive. And yet it is not a fruitless function that 
we perform to-day. 

The tribute bestowed upon the worthy dead, like the quality of 
mercy,blessestliegiver as well as the beneficiary. Our own hearts 
and minds are chastened and subdued by these solemn pauses in 
the absorbing pursuits of active life. 

In this aspect alone they are well worth the time expended. 
But there is another, let us hope. 



Powerless as they are upon the dead for inspiration or achieve- 
inei\t, hut potent in their reflex upon ourselves, they may be even 
more potent for comfort, for consolation to the family and friends. 
They may even prove fruitful of high ideals in the minds of 
younger men — ideals of thought, ideals of activity, ideals of Chris- 
tian living. 

Mr. Speaker, it was not my fortune to know Senator Earle 
intimately. Our lives had few points of tangency; unusually 
few for men in active public service in the same State. The 
circles of our olScial functions touched but seldom; those of our 
social and personal almost never. 

We differed widely upon political questions of absorbing in- 
tei'est. Each was an active partisan of his particular school of 
thought, but always under the segisof the great Democratic organi- 
zation. From this aspect it might be proper and natural for me 
to confine myself to some silent testimonial of sorrow for the un- 
timely death of our fallen brother. Some silent tribute of re- 
spect for his memory, some mute tender of sj'mpathy to the loved 
ones left behind, might fill the measure of reasonable expecta- 
tion—leaving to those who knew him well the sad though grate- 
ful task of portraying his virtues. 

But, Mr. Speaker, there is another and a different aspect. 
While Senator Earle did not belong to me in the sense of personal 
friendship, yet, in a wider sense, as a distinguished Carolinian, 
one who has contributed a worthy page to the history of our State, 
he is the property of all Carolinians, and I am here to-day to 
testify to the country that he has a sure abiding place in the es- 
teem and affection of all factions and all parties in his own State. 
In a still broader sense, as a patriotic American, as a noble expo- 
nent of Christian citizenship, he has become the property of us 
all. His upright life in public station and in private walk has be- 
come a part of the rich heritage of our common country. 

The measure of the richness of that heritage it is the high privi- 
lege of his colleagues in House and Senate to unfold to the country 
at large. In the presence of this public sorrow, this public calam- 
ity, we stand with heads bowed; yet our hearts are aglow with 
generous pride over the triumphs of our fallen comrade. In this 
Presence we forget all differences; we bury forever all personal 



rivalries and animosities, and turn away from the contemplation 
•of all save the ennobling lessons of a noble life. 

I have said that I had little opportunity for personal test and study 
at close range of the character of Senator Earle. That is true in a 
literal sense; and 3-ct I have touched his tangents, so to speak, at 
many points. One thing has impressed me particularly — the uni- 
formity of the impression he made upon those who came into per- 
sonal contact with him. That impression most frequently found 
expression in a uniformity of utterance. 

" He is a high-minded man" or a "high man " seemed to be the 
form of expression spontaneously suggested in the minds of most 
people; and the genuineness of the quality which it expressed 
was attested in the most practical and searching way, in this, 
that in the midst of heated political campaigns, when party and 
factional feeling ran high, no man, however bitterly opposed, 
ever charged or, I think, for a moment seriously thought of dis- 
honesty or dishonor in the same connection with this man. 

Again, Mr. Speaker, the rare quality of the man was concretely 
evidenced in the fact that though Senator Earle in 1890 led tho 
most vigorous and aggressive assaults iipon what was manifestly 
a ground swell of public opinion, yet within four years he was 
elevated to the bench on the crest of that same popular wave before 
which he had formerly gone down. 

That he should in 1896 have been chosen by popular vote in the 
primaries of his party as his party's candidate for United States 
Senator but completes the circle of a remarkable political career. 
But his political career, remarkable as it was, I shall not dwell 
upon. It has been minutely portrayed by others. I prefer to 
spend the few moments that I shall occupy the floor in holding up 
those characteristic qualities which constituted the personality of 
the man. 

Several traits contributed to the apparent transformation of 
public sentiment referred to. Of the minor traits perhaps none 
paved the way more fully to this remarkable renaissance of pop- 
ularity than the uniform sincerity and courtesy of the man. He 
wielded the keen edge of sarcasm and ridicule with the deft hand 
of a Saladin; but in the fiercest contest of partisan heat he rarely 

lost his suavity of manner, and never within my knowledge 
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lie fail in dignified courtesy. Above the turmoil of excitement 

that surged around him, his spirit was serene and kindly. 

As some tall cliff which rears its awful form, 
Swells from the vale and midway braves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Yet he was not lacking in spirit. None quicker than he to re- 
spond to studied offense. The only occasion upon which I heard 
him speak during the heated campaign of 1890 presented just such 
an instance. In the midst of his speech some one in the audience 
made a remark which he, Senator Earle (then attorney-general 
of the State and a candidate for governor) , construed as reflecting 
upon his integrity. Prompt as the report after the flash, and 
sharp as the crack of a pistol, came the response. Yet none was 
readier than he to make amend when the offense was withdrawn. 
Another thing has impressed me, Mr. Speaker, as I have touched 
the lives of those who have been in touch with the life of Senator 
Earle ; that is the firm hold he held upon the confidence and love 
of the Christian denomination to which he subscribed his faith. 
More than once have I been surprised to find the name of Joseph 
H. Earle honored in the home circle of a humble member of tho 
Baptist Church. Honored as a soldier? Yes. Honored as an 
eminent lawyer? Yes. Honored as a jurist and just judge? Yes, 
all this; and then I thought there was a tenderer element in the 
incense of honor to his name as a Christian statesman and exponent 
of Baptist culture, integrity, and fidelity. 

Such recognition, abiding in the breasts of his co-religionists liv- 
ing in the byways quite as frequently as when living on the 
thoroughfares of thought and activity, constitutes, in my judg- 
ment, the highest possible attestation to the qualitj' of the man. 

Mr. Speaker, there can be no worthier epitaph written of any 
man than that which is written in the hearts of the humble — a 
thousandfold moro than that reflected in the plaudits of the proud. 
If I were to attempt to sum up in one term the quality which 
lay at the foundation of the character of Senator Earle, I could 
find no fitter term than the single word faithful — faithful to so- 
cial obligations, to political obligations, to public obligations, to 
private obligations, to family obligations, and, back of all, faith- 
ful to his obligations to his God. In this last consisted the secret 



of his power, as it h;i8 constitutcHl tlic socrot of all true power, of 
highest i)Ower, in all the ages. 

The fathers, in framing onr language, recognized this eitmbn- 
tary fact. In all the experience of the past, fullness of faith in 
God has ever been the condition of highest fidelity to human trust 
and responsibility. The man who has had most faith in God 
has exhibited highest fidelity in all relations to his fellow-man. 
And so it has come about that the effect has its name from the 
efficient cause. The faithful man primarilj' is the man full of 
faith in God. 

Mr. Speaker, this is the noblest lesson, the most valuable mes- 
sage that comes back from the mute lips of our dead colleague 
to those of us who survive him. 

I have every reason to believe that the full faith in God which 
inspired and sustained fidelity to all duty and trust inspired and 
sustained him in his last earthly moments. It could not be other- 
wise. The faith that had illumined the pathway of duty in pub- 
lic station and in private walk must also have illumined his path- 
way through the dark vallc}' into the bright plains of celestial im- 
mortality. The same creative hand that implanted that faith in 
his breast, and filled his breast with immortal aspiration, still 
reigns, and He is just. The existence of the faith, the abiding 
presence of the hope, is the highest guarantee of the fulfillment of 
that hope. 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
Whom vfe that have not seen Thy faco 
By faith and faith alone embrace. 
Believing when we can not prove; 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 
Thou madest life in man and l)rute; 
Thou madest death; and lo. Thy foot 
Is on the skull which Thou hast made. 
Thou will not leave us in the dust; 
Thou madest man, he knows not why; 
He thinks he was not made to die; 
And Thou hast made him; Thou art just. 

Mr. Speaker, this is the message borne back to us from his silent 
tomb. Let us profit by the message and the lesson. 

And now what shall I say, what word of comfort utter, to the 
■widow in her weeds and the orphan in his woe? 

I can do nothing better than point them to that lesson and that 
prayer, 

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Mr. Speaker, in one of the most beautiful prose poems ever con- 
ceived, Longfellow portra3-s the bitterness, the sorrow, the gloom, 
the hopeless desolation of one whose life companion had been 
snatched away from his side. His wanderings finally led him (by 
chance, shall we say?) to a rude little chapel in a foreign land, 
whose open door invited the weary wanderer to its darkened cool- 
ness. 

He went in. Silence and solitude abode with the coolness 
there. Nothing was there to move the spirit to devotion. The 
rude pictures and funeral tablets did not appeal to the artistic 
sense. Yet the appointed hour and the man had met. The days 
and weeks and months of weary suffering had wrought their ap- 
pointed purpose. Through the blinding tears that welled up from 
a heart burdened with bitter recollections, sore and bleeding, he 
read on a marble tablet this inscription: 

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. "Wisely im- 
prove the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future with- 
out fear and with a manly heart. 

He accepted it as a message from the silent occupant of the 
tomb. He arose from the ashes of his grief with a new purpose 
and a new hope, determined to meet the future with a bravo 
heart. 

Through their blinding tears may the widow and the orphaned 
children, as they assemble around the faithful father's tomb, read 
the same lesson and realize the rich heritage which is theirs— the 
heritage of an unsullied history, the heritage of an immortal hope. 
Theirs be the hope, the consolation; theirs and ours the lesson 
and the prayer. May they and we gather inspiration from his 
life for a better life- 
Lite that dares send 
A challenge to its end, 
And when it comes, say. Welcome, friend! 
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